OCA Course: Variety With a Low Sun.

For this exercise I used our "Diving Belle" on the lighthouse pier at Scarborough Harbour. She features in Assignment 4. The sun was setting over the town and only light scattered cloud was in the sky, giving some interest. I moved around the statue with camera on a tripod, and a 17-40mm zoom lens.

1. Back Light.

2. Edge Light.

3. Frontal Light.

4. Side Light.

A couple of extras

Two images from the last exercise, but taken with -1ev. They look better.

OCA Course: Light Through the Day 2.

Staggering! The images have actually uploaded this time - there's no rhyme or reason why Blogger doesn't upload reliably, and for those with a slow broadband connection, it wastes a lot of time.

These are the alternative images for the last post, with a different view looking directly east. Both sets were done before the clocks sprang forwards.

Once again, the early morning image is best so no more lie-ins!

9. 18-30: 1/30 @ F 5.6.

8. 17-15: 1/180 @ F 8.

7. 16-15: 1/1000 @ F 5.6.

6. 14-15: 1/1500 @ F 5.6.

5. 12-00: 1/1500 @ F 5.6.

4. 10-00: 1/1000 @ F8.

3. 08-30: 1/2000 @ F8.

2. 07-30: 1/1000 @ F8.

1. 06-30: 1/250 @ F8.

OCA Course: Light Through the Day.

Light through the day: "The best laid plans - " etc. The Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before this exercise were bright and sunny all day, but I was working. The BBC weather forecast for the Thursday was for more of the same so an early start to the intended site, a nice shiny new grain silo at a local farm, was made, but I soon found the site was unsuitable because of intrusion of nearby trees. I therefore diverted to our local fish pond, a nice tranquil scene open to the sun. The sun was just up as I arrived, and, although misty, it looked like it was going to be fine as forecast. The scene is taken from over a high wide ivy-covered wall, looking due south across the pond, and because of the awkward position, I had to hand hold the camera - hence the high shutter speeds. The camera was the EOS 1D Mk111 with 17-40mm zoom lens at approx. 27mm, ISO 400, and the white balance was fixed on the "daylight" setting. All was going well until about 2pm, when it unexpectedly clouded over and spoiled the sequence, with no nice rosy sunset, so I didn't end up with a good, full series. The time, effort and petrol involved meant the exercise won't be repeated. I did take a second set of images at the same time from a different viewpoint looking due east, but as these flatly refuse to upload onto the Blog (a serious problem with this course), I can't show them today - I'll try and post them later. The images read from bottom up (another Blog loading problem).

As the sun moves round to the south and west, the house in the distance gradually comes out of shadow to reveal its walls in the diffuse western light. The weeping willow trees show initial shadow on the left side, moving to the right as the day progresses. The colour temperature starts cold and blue, and is just showing signs of warming up in the mid afternoon before going blue again because of the cloud. The nicest image is the first one at 06-30 hours, which confirms you have to get up early.

The main reason this exercise is posted late is the inordinate number of weeks it took to train the ducks to sit in the correct position.

Moral: Don't trust the BBC weather forecast.

9. 18-30: 1/30 @ F5.6

8. 17-15: 1/250 @ F8

7. 16-15: 1/1500 @ F5.6

6. 14-15: 1/200 @ F5.6

5. 12-00: 1/4000 @ F5.6

4. 10-00: 1/2000 @ F8

3. 08-30: 1/1000 @ F8

2. 07-30: 1/250 @ F8

1. 06-30: 1/180 @ F8

OCA Course: Assignment 4: Lighting Techniques - Images

These are the images submitted for Assignment 4 and should be seen in context with the previous post.

1. Location.

2.Shape 1.

3. Shape 2.

4. Form 1.

5. Form 2.

6. Form 3.

7. Texture 1.

8. Texture 2.

9. Colour WB Daylight.

10. Colour WB Shade.

11. Colour Tungsten.

12. Colour Flash.

OCA COURSE

THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY

IAN GLAVES

504473

 

ASSIGNMENT 4: Applying lighting techniques.

 

I chose as my subject for this assignment "Diving Belle", one of two sculptures in Scarborough. This one is sited on the end of the harbour pier, the other being in the main shopping area of town. The two main reasons for choosing it are the position – it's in good light and faces south-east and one can walk round it, and the grey finish, which I thought would be a good canvas for the changing light conditions and techniques. I visited it on three occasions, two in the afternoon on clear sunny days to catch the fading light of sunset, and once at night on a slightly cloudy/hazy but fine evening. She stands about 18 feet above the ground, so all the views are from below. A view from the adjacent lighthouse would be good but access isn't available. Despite her rather severe expression, I think she is rather nice (apart from the girder she is mounted on), and an asset to the town. All images were taken with the aid of a tripod, and all were RAW file originals to allow better post processing control.

 

1. Location: Canon EOS 1D Mk111, 17-40mm lens @ 17mm, ISO 200, F8@1/500sec., evaluative metering, daylight WB. This image gives an overall view of the location against a setting sun, and is for information only to set the scene, but would be appropriate for the "Shape" category as it is a good silhouette.
   
2. Shape 1: Canon EOS 1D Mk111, 17-40mm lens @ 40mm, ISO 200, F8@1/750sec., evaluative metering, auto WB. This is a near silhouette which shows off the overall shape of the statue, with just a feint hint of rim lighting to accentuate this.
   
3. Shape 2: Canon EOS 40D, 17-40mm lens @ 40mm, ISO 200, F11@1/640, evaluative metering, auto WB. I deliberately under-exposed by 2ev to give a more dramatic appearance to the sky and shadow/highlight contrast, but this proved a bit much, so brought it back 1ev in post processing. I think the highlight "rim" lighting gives a good impression of shape.
   
4. Form 1: Canon EOS 40D, 17-40mm lens @ 31mm, ISO 200, F11@1/1000sec., evaluative metering, auto WB. Again, I deliberately underexposed 2ev and corrected by 1ev. The frontal lighting shows the folds of clothing, skin creases and muscular definition of the diver, giving depth to the image. The setting sun imparts a hint of gold which contrasts nicely with the good sky.
   
5. Form 2: Canon EOS 1D Mk111, 17-40mm lens @ 40mm, ISO 200, F8@1/350sec., evaluative metering, auto WB. A similar shot to the previous one but earlier on a different day. The light is flatter and no exposure compensation was used. There is still good modeling giving depth and form to the statue. I like the inclusion of the moon to add a little interest to the sky.
   
6. Form 3: Canon EOS 1D Mk111, 100-400mm lens @ 100mm, ISO 200, F8@1/250sec., evaluative metering, auto WB. The oblique and fairly low sun has really brought out the form of the face and chest of the diver.
   
7. Texture 1: Canon EOS 1D Mk111, 100-400 lens @ 285mm, ISO 200, F8@1/125sec., evaluative metering, auto WB. Moving in closer with the tele-zoom begins to show fine detail of the surface texture of the statue, highlighting the brush strokes of the paint, skin lines and facial features, all brought out by the sharp oblique lighting from the point source of the sun.
   
8. Texture 2: Canon EOS 1D Mk111, 17-40mm lens @ 25mm, ISO 400, F9.5@9sec., minus 1ev, spot metering, auto WB. This is a mixture of floodlighting (courtesy of Scarborough Borough Council) from two directions (a kind of ready-made studio!), and the long exposure to give some background information. The 1ev reduction was as a result of experimentation so as not to burn out the statue, and the exposure was determined by spot metering on her buttocks! The modeling provided by the two floodlights of different intensity coming from front and back shows the overall texture of the statue against an interesting background of moon and sea-front lights.
   
9. Colour WB Daylight: Canon EOS 1D Mk111, 100-400mm lens @ 180mm, ISO 200, F8@1/180sec., evaluative metering, daylight white balance. This is essentially a standard daylight image with the sun behind cloud that gives a base-line for the three that follow. There is just a hint of blueness to the paint as a consequence of the blue sky.
   
10. Colour WB Shade: Details as above but exposure F8@1/350sec, after the sun came out and with the white balance set to shade. The difference in colour is striking – the statue is now gold.
    
11. Colour Tungsten: Canon EOS 1D Mk111, 17-40mm lens @ 31mm, ISO 1600, F5.6@1sec., spot metering, auto white balance. Despite the auto white balance, the tungsten light is very yellow and the camera hasn't coped fully with trying to convert to daylight. This has imparted a rather nice golden glow to the diver, complimented by the similarly coloured but darker sky.
    
12. Colour Flash: Canon EOS 1D Mk111, 17-40mm lens @40mm, ISO 400, F5.6@1sec., minus 1.5ev, spot metering, electronic flash (no compensation), auto white balance. To make sure the sky was black, I set the camera exposure to minus 1.5ev whilst leaving the flash unchanged, and metered off her buttocks again. The auto white balance has resulted in an overall silver colour, with just a hint of gold from the tungsten spots spilling onto the statue.
    

 

For me, the take home message here is that with a bit of forethought and planning markedly different results can be achieved by studying the position, angle and colour of daylight and applying different white balance settings. Using artificial light at night, whether it is provided free (as with the floodlights on the pier), or with flash, can produce some really dramatic differences to ones photographs.

 

 

        

The Lighting Angle (Part 2)

Following on from part one, these images are taken with the flash held at approximately 45 degrees to the horizontal, apart from the first three, which are the overhead series. Instead of the studio flash head, I used a semi-automatic electronic flash unit with the diffuser. It's a 39 year old Vivitar 283 unit which still works beautifully - they don't make 'em like that any more! It's smaller, therefore I was able to move around the subject easier in the tight space.

1. Overhead in front:

2. Vertically overhead:

3. Overhead behind:

4. At 4-30 o'clock:

5. At 3 o'clock:

6. At 1-30 o'clock:

7. At 12 o'clock:

8. At 10.30 o'clock:

9. At 9 o'clock:

10. At 7-30 o'clock:

11. At 6 o'clock (camera position):

It's all a matter of what you want to show. Overall detail in the frontal oblique shots, or dramatic "silhouettes" in the backlit shots. I wouldn't profess to say which is best, only that one should bear them in mind when deciding how a subject should be lit.

The Lighting Angle (Part 1)

The set-up here is the same as for the "Softening the Light" post, but due to time constraints, only the images with the flash at the same height as the camera and subject (hence Part 1 - Part 2 to follow in a separate post). The light was again a studio flash head with an umbrella diffuser, apart from the shots with the unit pointing at the camera, where I took the diffuser off.

1. Flash next to camera: Relatively flat contrast, although the subject has enough of it's own modelling for this not to be an issue.

2. Flash at 45 deg. to camera (at 7-30 o'clock): The horses faces are better lit as the flash is more directly pointed at them. The muscular definition is better with improved modelling.

3. Flash at 90 deg. to the left (9 o'clock): Side lighting gives a dramatic effect.

4. Flash at 135 deg. to subject (10-30 o'clock): nice rim lighting. The diffused flash has caught the background cloth. I'll have to clear out the garage.

5. Flash behind the subject at 180 deg. (12 o'clock), placed high: The flash head was too big to hide it behind the horses, so I placed it out of view above the line of sight, but it has flared the lens and shown up the dirt and dust on it! Reflections from the bronze have illuminated the flash stand. Not good.

6. Flash low behind subject: I hid the flash below table-top level. This has cut out the flare and given a rather surreal effect. Once again, some light has been picked up from reflections off the pale walls.

7. Flash at 225 deg. (1-30 o'clock): Only the rear of the horse is seen. This image isn't much use in my opinion - it's difficult to tell what it actually represents. The horses heads are not seen.

8. Flash at 270 deg. (3 o'clock): Sorry, sofa in the way - no image!

9. Flash at 315 deg. (4-30 o'clock): This is quite a nice representation with good modelling and contrast.